Trump Administration Program Nearly Ended Asylum. Now, Coronavirus Has Halted It.
Trump Administration Program Nearly Ended Asylum. Now, Coronavirus Has Halted It.
Alicia A. Caldwell
6 hrs ago
Tens of thousands of migrants who were waiting in Mexico on the slim hopes that their request for asylum in the U.S. might succeed are now stuck there indefinitely until the coronavirus pandemic eases and the border reopens.
https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/...&x=2047&y=1696 © REUTERS/Paul Ratje Migrants in the "Remain in Mexico" program wait in line at the border to reschedule their immigration hearings amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, April 20, 2020.
Under the year-old program called Migrant Protection Protocols, or MPP, most people who request asylum in the U.S. are sent to wait in Mexico and only allowed over the border for hearings in immigration court every few months.
Instituted by the Trump administration to deter previously skyrocketing illegal immigration by Central American families seeking asylum, the program dramatically lowered their odds of success. Just over 1% of migrants in MPP whose cases have been decided have been granted asylum or some other legal protection.
The success rate for people who waited in the U.S. for their cases to be resolved, which used to be standard practice before MPP, was roughly 30% in the federal fiscal year that ended last September.
Of the nearly 65,000 foreigners made to wait in Mexico for U.S. court decisions since the program began last year, roughly 20,000 still have cases pending. An untold number of others have appealed rejections of their pleas for protection.
Now, with the closure of the U.S.-Mexico border to all but essential travel and the shuttering of immigration courts due to fears over the coronavirus, most of their cases have been stopped dead in their tracks.
Maria, an asylum seeker from Latin America who was put into MPP just over two months ago, said she and her fellow asylum-seeking migrants waiting in the Mexican border city of Nogales are equally afraid of contracting Covid-19 and the criminal organizations in the area.
“We risk both of them to get food,” she said in Spanish via text message.
Maria, who shares an apartment with other asylum seekers, recently had to take a bus about 10 hours to the east to report for a court hearing in El Paso, Texas, across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez. When she arrived, border authorities told her that due to the coronavirus shutdown, her hearing has been rescheduled for June.
That’s typical for MPP participants, who must make the long and sometimes dangerous trip to official border crossings on their scheduled dates just in order to be informed that it has been rescheduled to May or June. Many medical experts have questioned whether public gathering places such as courts will be open then.
Advocates are concerned the procedure is putting MPP participants at risk.
“Requiring individuals to travel on crowded buses in the midst of the pandemic runs contrary to all public health recommendations and best practices,” said Joanna Williams, director of education and outreach for aid group Kino Border Initiative.
Mailing documents to people in MPP is typically impossible, as they tend to live in encampments, shelters or temporary apartments with no stable address.
Customs and Border Protection, which carries out the program, said in a statement that “due to logistical issues, coming to the port of entry in person and receiving new immigration hearing dates in person remains the most effective way to continue the process.”
MPP, also known as “Remain in Mexico,” was instituted to deter previously skyrocketing illegal immigration by Central American families seeking asylum.
Advocates for the asylum seekers say the rates of success have fallen in part because of logistical hurdles such as fewer lawyers willing to cross the border to high-crime Mexican cities, difficulty gathering and translating paperwork while living in a foreign country with few resources, and obstacles getting across the border to their hearings.
“If the goal was to build a wall with Mexico with bricks and mortar, this administration has effectively gotten the same goal without building a wall,” said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute’s office at New York University School of Law.
Trump administration officials said the program gets decisions to migrants faster and more efficiently and has reduced illegal immigration. Arrests of people crossing from Mexico to the U.S. without legal authorization declined for eight straight months after reaching a 13-year high of more than 132,000 last May. The program has been challenged in court, and the Supreme Court recently ruled it may continue until a final court ruling.
“What MPP also does is it allows us to administer the laws more effectively by assisting legitimate asylum seekers,” said Robert Pérez, deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, at a conference last month. “MPP has absolutely been instrumental in our ability to address the ongoing national security crisis along our southwest border.”
Even for the most prepared and qualified applicant, the fate of an MPP asylum case is unpredictable, according to attorneys. “I think it’s random in terms of the judge, the date, the time, the trial attorney,” said Jodi Goodwin, a longtime immigration lawyer in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley who represents several MPP migrants.
One of the few factors that seem to make a difference is whether the migrant is from Cuba or Venezuela. Among the 517 MPP participants who have won protection since the program began, 438 come from those two countries.
Combined, Cubans and Venezuelans make up just 17% of MPP participants.
People from those countries win more frequently, experts say, because they tend to have more money, are better educated and can more easily explain to a judge the persecution they have faced at home. Their cases are also more frequently based on political opposition to their home governments, which are vocal opponents of the U.S.
Of the 3,993 MPP migrants known to have lawyers, roughly 47% are from Cuba or Venezuela, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.
There’s no data on how many migrants living in shelters or encampments are infected with Covid-19. Advocates have said some shelters are trying to quarantine people they believe are sick. Given the crowded conditions and lack of supplies such as soap, sanitizer and masks, residents fear it’s only a matter of time.
As the border closure has essentially frozen MPP participants in place, shelters in Mexico are increasingly denying entry by new arrivals. In some instances, shelters won’t let migrants who have left to report for new court dates come back, fearing that they may have been infected while standing in crowded border port lines.
In Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, thousands of migrants live in a tent encampment alongside the Rio Grande.
“We’re afraid of the pandemic,” said José, a Central American who has been living in a small orange and grey tent with his wife and young daughter since August. “Only God can protect all of us.”
The family lost their bid for asylum but have appealed their case and are living in Matamoros while their case is reviewed by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
They live in the south end of the camp, a crowded section where there is just a small walking path between tents. Donated food supplies and meals were previously available on a routine basis, José said, but with travel restrictions at the border, the supply has grown scarce.
“There is food in the [community] pantry, but it’s all for sale,” José said. “And we don’t have any money.”
José and his wife, Evelyn, who declined to use their full names or country of origin due to fears for their relatives’ safety, said they left one of the three Central American countries known as the Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras—last July, after being repeatedly targeted by gangs for extortion. Those three countries make up about 70% of all MPP participants.
After submitting a 338-page asylum packet, translated into English, and testifying about the threats and attacks on their family, a judge ruled in January that while she found Evelyn credible, she didn’t believe all of her testimony. And the judge said she didn’t believe José at all, according to the couple.
Evelyn said the multi-hour trial was difficult for her and her husband, as the judge and a government lawyer asked the same questions over and over, translated into Spanish by an interpreter. She said she answered them honestly every time.
Immigration and court officials have declined to comment on specific cases.
José and Evelyn said they aren’t sure what they will do or where they will go if an appeals panel rejects their case.
Write to Alicia A. Caldwell at Alicia.Caldwell@wsj.com
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